Malawi Cichlid Diet Query

[Mincher183]

This is likely a really stupid question, but in the small hours I was thinking about the years I’ve kept Malawi’s successfully (Circa 10 years)

I’ve had some minor issues with this batch I’ve started with recently, seemingly an internal parasite issue. I’ve been feeding Thera+ for the past week hoping the garlic content will help.

But then I questioned how they live in the wild, they live grazing on algae from rocks, which my rocks now have. So I wondered is there actually a need to supplement this with additional food more than maybe twice a week? They have long digestive tracts, the females go a month without eating when holding eggs/fry.

Surely if we as keepers are to replicate the conditions properly it should be a case of leaving them to feed on the algae on the rocks and the less interference the better?

Like I said these were thoughts from the small hours so likely silly and with easy explanation but.. thought I’d share.

 

[Colin_T]

What species of fish are you talking about?

In the wild, some fish will graze on algae and sometimes pick up small crustaceans and insect larvae that is on the algae or rocks being grazed on. They will also eat fish eggs and scavenge dead fish, shrimp and crabs when find them.

 

[Mincher183]

Sorry buddy. Would’ve helped wouldn’t it at the moment there’s 5 Yellow Labs, 3 Acei and 2 synodontis petricola. Nothing dramatic, they’re grazing at the rocks all day regardless of me feeding them.

 

[Colin_T]

The Synodontis are meat eaters and will take any sort of small insect, crustacean, fish or fish eggs. The others are omnivores that will take anything but need a bit of plant matter in their diet.

If they are adults I would feed each day or every second day with some meat foods (prawn, fish, brineshrimp, daphnia, etc), but also make sure they have some Duckweed, algae and soft leaf plants to eat.

If they are young fish or you want to breed them, feed them a couple of times a day.

The Synodontis prefer to be in bigger groups, so if you can get a couple more, they would be happier.

 

[Mincher183]

Just got to be careful with Mbuna and their long digestive tracts. Too much protein and I’ll end up with a bloat issue.

All a beautifully intricate balancing act really. Like I said I’ve kept Mbuna for around 10 years without issue but was just one of those late night thought processes.

cheers for the input.

 

[Colin_T]

The biggest issues I had with vegetarian cichlids was using frozen bloodworms that caused bloating in some species. Some brands of bloodworm are fine but I just dropped frozen bloodworms completely and had very few issues after that.

Things like Daphnia, Mysis shrimp, and small amounts of prawn weren't a problems for Mbuna. However, they also had lots of plants in the tank and got vege flakes each day.

The only cichlids that I know need a purely plant based diet are the Tropheus. They don't do well on meat based foods.